File under "not my proudest moment", but I was telling a friend about this on the phone earlier today and I decided to blog it:
There are two kinds of “success coachesâ€, those that are speaking from real world business experience and those whose real world experience consists solely of being…â€a success coachâ€. Charlatans like Joe Vitale or the wannabe Steve Pavlina are typical of the latter.
Brian Tracy is the exemplar of the former. I love Brian Tracy, his core message is pretty much the same throughout most of his work, but it’s a good one. Sometimes I need to hear something about a dozen times before it finally sinks in (just ask my wife).
His Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires is a fantastic entry-level seminar which I make a point of re-listening too every few months or so.
I was recently recounting the story of a particularly disastrous CXO level hire at one of my companies to a longtime mentor and I mentioned Brian Tracy’s maxim on hiring and firing:
Question: When is the appropriate time to fire somebody?
Answer: The first time it crosses your mind.
When I heard that I chalked it up as draconian and figured I had to agree to disagree with him on that one.
There is an old adage (I think it was coined by Canadian political satirist Ben Wicks) who once quipped
“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need itâ€.
Well now I no longer disagree with Brian Tracy on it. He was right, I was wrong to disagree, and my ill-informed opinion on the matter cost me close to $500,000, maybe more.
That’s right, had I just followed that advice the first time I heard it, I’d be nearly half-a-million bucks richer now. And believe me, I’m not one of those super-rich dot com guys that can blow a half-mil on lunch, blow and hookers. Half a million bucks to me is non-trivial money.
(It's long, but the upshot is I never fired the guy even though it crossed my mind after a few months. Hilarity ensues.
The rest is on my blog: http://antiguru.com/success-101/ignoring-this-brian-tracy-rule-cost-me-over-400000 )
There are two kinds of “success coachesâ€, those that are speaking from real world business experience and those whose real world experience consists solely of being…â€a success coachâ€. Charlatans like Joe Vitale or the wannabe Steve Pavlina are typical of the latter.
Brian Tracy is the exemplar of the former. I love Brian Tracy, his core message is pretty much the same throughout most of his work, but it’s a good one. Sometimes I need to hear something about a dozen times before it finally sinks in (just ask my wife).
His Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires is a fantastic entry-level seminar which I make a point of re-listening too every few months or so.
I was recently recounting the story of a particularly disastrous CXO level hire at one of my companies to a longtime mentor and I mentioned Brian Tracy’s maxim on hiring and firing:
Question: When is the appropriate time to fire somebody?
Answer: The first time it crosses your mind.
When I heard that I chalked it up as draconian and figured I had to agree to disagree with him on that one.
There is an old adage (I think it was coined by Canadian political satirist Ben Wicks) who once quipped
“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need itâ€.
Well now I no longer disagree with Brian Tracy on it. He was right, I was wrong to disagree, and my ill-informed opinion on the matter cost me close to $500,000, maybe more.
That’s right, had I just followed that advice the first time I heard it, I’d be nearly half-a-million bucks richer now. And believe me, I’m not one of those super-rich dot com guys that can blow a half-mil on lunch, blow and hookers. Half a million bucks to me is non-trivial money.
(It's long, but the upshot is I never fired the guy even though it crossed my mind after a few months. Hilarity ensues.
The rest is on my blog: http://antiguru.com/success-101/ignoring-this-brian-tracy-rule-cost-me-over-400000 )
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